Okay. So I began this maybe a month ago (perhaps a little less), and with few exceptions, I have been successful.

I work long hours and live in sort of a residence with other people. The food is provided and is good, but oh so carb-loaded. Typical meals include pizza, hamburgers, hot dogs, pasta, lasagna, subs and meat pies. Its not the best place to be health-conscious. There is a salad bar for most meals, but its iceberg lettuce with very little colour and very little variety of what to put on it.

To top it all off, there is ‘hot snack’ provided for us at 10pm most nights. This snack is usually very unhealthy: pizza, chicken wings, nachos and jamaican patties. To avoid consuming all these unnecessary carbs at night, I started the ‘no eating after 8pm’ goal. So far, its been good. At first it was super hard to curb the urge to snack, especially when most others are waiting for snack. I simply do not go over and get snack, and allow myself to drink whatever I want. When I really want to snack, I instead have a small candy, something to drink or a piece of gum. When I’m drinking this becomes harder, but so far I have not snacked while drinking, and allow myself to have whatever drinks I want without punishment.

For the most part, I’ve been good even when the environment has changed. I had one late meal at 8.30pm, and some ice cream once (when it was specially bought for us), but other than that, I’ve been pretty good.

When I was first starting, it helped me to put a small ‘x’ on my hand, committing myself to no snacks. It was a constant reminder so I would actively think about it, but I think what really made this part of my success was that people would ask why I had the ‘x’ and I had to tell them. Telling people makes the goal a reality.

This goal makes me really proud of myself. The only problems I see with it are that sometimes I snack heavily right before 8pm, so I might need to move up that deadline, or simply say, no eating after supper.

I hope to carry this forward. Good luck! 19 months ago